


Dinner holding hands

by Scoby



Series: Reylo experiments [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Canon Universe, Dating, Dinner, Dinner Party with First Order Families, Double Dating, During Canon, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Galactic Sex Strike Against The First Order, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Relationship Advice, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Singing, Sexual Frustration, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25221466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scoby/pseuds/Scoby
Summary: When they use their Force bond to bring her to a dinner party with his officers' families, Rey ends up finding exactly the allies she needs to bring down the First Order and turn Kylo Ren.-----“Hey everyone, this is Rey. She’s… Well… You know our situation. She can only be here as long as we hold hands.”[...later...]“Rey, do you have something to do with this? My crew is going crazy. None of them has got laid in a month. I… I had no idea that was what kept them going.”
Relationships: Rey & Dopheld Mitaka's girlfriend, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo experiments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872295
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	1. How they took control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How about I let you see my surroundings but I promise I won’t look at yours? Just to see if it can be done.”

Rey closed the shower and quickly covered herself with a towel. Already a couple of times, the Force bond had opened right when she was changing clothes. She had grown careful about spending most of her time appropriately clothed and minimizing any activities that she would be embarrassed to be caught doing.

On Jakku, she used to enjoy singing to herself. She loved letting her voice out loud into the emptiness of the desert. Any pleasures like that were out of question in her current life where the Supreme Leader of the First Order may materialize in her personal space any time it pleased the Force.

She started to dry herself awkwardly, turning constantly around inside the small ‘fresher. If Kylo Ren would appear now, she would not even know from which direction. Before dressing up, she wrapped the towel around herself again and lifted the hem just enough to sit on the toilet seat.

She tried to be quick but right then it happened. Kylo Ren manifested behind the wall in front of her. She could not see him but could clearly feel the presence. And he apparently could see through her wall, as she quickly heard his voice:

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

When Rey was done, she walked outside the ‘fresher and slammed the door shut. She saw him on the other side of the wall now, still looking away from her.

“Kylo, we have to learn to control this.”

“I agree.”

“Let’s practice first one by one, just going out of this connection and coming back again. Then we can try it both and practice initiating and preventing it on purpose.”

“Ok, do you want to dress up first?”

“Yes.”

Kylo still turned away until Rey got dressed and sat down in front of him.

“Ok, I can go first”, he said. “Just wait until I come back.”

Rey watched as he closed his eyes and breathed deep. But he did not go anywhere. After a while, he gave up and opened his eyes.

“How about I try?” Rey suggested and closed her eyes.

She concentrated on feeling the room, all the space inside herself and Kylo’s presence. She tried first pushing him away through the Force. Nothing about him moved. Then she tried to tune into herself and take more distance. But it seemed like his presence was following her, even without him doing anything.

Something about the Force was keeping them together regardless of their own will, but she had no idea what it could be. Hopeless, she opened her eyes to meet his equally puzzled gaze.

“Let’s look for it together”, he said. “The control has to be somewhere outside of us.”

And they both dived into awareness of the space around them and between them.

“I think I found something”, Kylo finally said.

Rey could feel a pull in her upper belly.

“What did you do?”

“See, between us, reach for it.”

Rey did not feel anything, until he held out something like a hand to her through the Force and guided her attention to where he wanted it.

“There are cords here, do you feel them?”

Now Rey could feel. There were several, in different sizes, some pulsating, some undulating, some still. She grabbed the thickest one and stretched it outwards from her. When she opened her eyes, Kylo was not in her room anymore.

But soon she felt a pull, this time in her left shoulder. She closed her eyes, pulled the cord attached there and was with him again. They both smiled with satisfaction.

“It worked, that’s the control!” she celebrated.

“Now we just need to decide how to use it.”

He was starting to fade as the Force was about to close the connection, but he got a hold of the cord again and pulled himself back.

“Yes, I was saying that we need to decide how to use the control. I suppose the arrangement of the chords may vary, but we could decide a pattern that we can use regardless of their positioning.”

And they settled for one single pull to signal an incoming call to the other. Accepting and rejecting would be easy by choosing the direction of pulling the cord in the other end. But in case they would like to signal reasons for rejection, they agreed two nudges for ‘not a good time now but try again soon’ or three for ‘I definitely don’t want to talk’.

Rey was expecting that she would mostly be using the definite rejection gesture. The less she would be in touch with the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the smaller the chances that she would slip some critical information or do any other kind of damage to the Resistance.

Her worst fear was that Kylo would start using this channel to ask her to join him again and again. She would not be able to resist forever. On the other hand, she still remembered how he had been the only person she could talk to when having a hard time on Ahch-To. If loneliness like that would hit her again, she was happy to have a way to reach him.

But Kylo was not yet content with the arrangement of one, two and three pulls only.

“What about situations when it’s really urgent to pick up?”

“Like when?”

“I just… Rey, you don’t know how worried I am for you whenever we send a patrol to scout for the Resistance base. If you’d be in any danger, I’d want you to call me and I’d want to drop anything I’m doing to save you.”

“Couldn’t you just stop sending those patrols out?”

“It’s not that simple. Please, Rey, let’s agree five pulls to signal an urgent call. For now, before this… situation is over.”

Rey rolled her eyes but agreed to the five pulls signal, certain that she would never use it. Last time the First Order had attacked their base, Kylo had sent fighters on Rey’s tail to blow her out of the sky. No matter what he was saying and however genuinely worried he appeared at the moment, his volatile moods provided very little reason to trust him.

A couple of days later, Rey was alone for a walk in the jungle. It had just rained and she was luxuriating in the heightened scents of the plants and soil. Then she felt the familiar vortex in the Force that was about to bring Kylo Ren to her space. She stopped, felt for the cords between them, found the thickest one connected to her neck and pulled it outwards.

With a flicker, the vortex disappeared. She was free! The Force had not forced them together. She was so happy she started to sing, at the top of her lungs in the midst of trees where nobody could hear. Songs she had almost forgotten came back to her. And she also sang some that she had almost learned when hearing them played in the base. She came back from the walk with a hoarse throat but a blissful mind, ready to take on the First Order by herself.

They did not start to always reject the Force-initiated connection, though. Sometimes they even used the single-pull signal to initiate it themselves. This was mostly in situations when both were alone and with nothing better to do, and they stuck strictly to casual conversation, avoiding any touch on the complex matters between them.

But the possibility to intentionally open and close the Force bond bred curiosity in both of them. Once, when they had been spontaneously connected without either one having any specific interest to close the bond, Kylo brought it up:

“I’m not sure if you like to talk about this, but when we touched hands…”

“No, I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I’m not talking about us, you see, but about the bond. I could see some of your surroundings.”

Rey leaned forward with a hint of curiosity that encouraged him to continue:

“Just blurry, but I could make out that you had a fire on, and then there was a shape of a person, I guessed it was Luke though I couldn’t have recognized, and then something like tiles flying. Would you let me try to see now?”

“No, you don’t need to know where I am.”

“How about I let you see my surroundings but I promise I won’t look at yours? Just to see if it can be done.”

His promise sounded like extremely vague. On Ahch-To, Rey had not purposefully shown him anything and still he had seen something around her. There was no guarantee that he would even have the control not to look. But then she scanned around her small room. There was not even a window. This kind of bunker could exist anywhere in the galaxy.

“Ok”, she said and took a couple of steps closer to him.

She tried to take his hand in the most casual way possible, in a way that would convince them both that it was for research only. But the electricity that last time had rippled from her fingertips through her whole body was there again. She tried to shove it away from her attention and focus instead on how to crack into Kylo’s surroundings. But no matter how much she tried, she still only saw her own room around them. Kylo squeezed her hand tighter.

“Don’t resist it, I think that’s the key. That’s how I saw last time, when I let go of everything else but how it felt to touch you.”

She tuned into the sweet feeling in her hand, trying to put aside the conflicted emotions it caused in combination with his comment. She let the tingles fill her and followed their trail into Kylo’s hand, then further in and around him and then she saw it. First everything was blurry, but there were clearly white walls all around, and a shape of a table where her room had none. He opened himself more to her access, she felt more of the inviting electric flutter and followed it.

Little by little, the outlines became sharper until she could see the whole room where he was in. Kylo took her around the room, had her pick up objects, sit on chairs and lean on walls as experiments. Both of them ended up laughing. They wondered if Snoke could ever have expected that they would gain this much control over this Force construction.

Some kind of an alarm buzzed in Kylo’s quarters and Rey retraced her steps back to her own surroundings so that he could close the bond and tend to it. But she was left smiling with fascination about this finding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, they are going to use their new ability to bring a hungry Rey to a First Order officers' dinner party.


	2. How she ended up at the dinner party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey everyone, this is Rey. She’s… Well… You know our situation. She can only be here as long as we hold hands.”

The Resistance was growing stronger with new volunteers showing up almost daily from all around the galaxy. Unexpectedly, to Rey, it meant that she spent even more time alone. The newcomers were almost constantly in training, which she was not involved with because of her own ongoing Jedi practice. And now that their fleet was stronger and not bound to frantic hiding, her friends spent a lot more time on missions out of the base.

They were increasingly bold after any possible information about the First Order and sometimes even doing offensive projects like stealing supplies or blowing up strategic locations. They were not ready for an open attack yet, but little things to make their enemy weaker were important in preparation for one.

When Rey’s best friends were out on a mission to track down a food supply delivery that was late and out of contact, Rey was again alone in her room in the evening, stomach rumbling. She reached for a thick cord she could feel attached to her right knee and pulled once. She felt Kylo pull back at the other end, which was quickly followed by his appearance.

“Why did you call?” he asked.

“I was just missing you.”

“Listen, I’m busy... My officers’ families are visiting and we’re having dinner with them. But you can join if you want to. Have you eaten today?”

Invitation to a First Order dinner party sounded like utterly seedy. These people had probably been ordered to kill her on sight. Their Supreme Leader was clearly held back by his own conflicted feelings about her, but that certainly would not apply to the officers. On the other hand, she really had not eaten the whole day because of the delayed supply delivery.

Kylo could either read or guess a lot of these thoughts.

“Don’t worry, they wouldn’t try to hurt you in front of their families. Even if somebody would seriously flip, I wouldn’t let them do it. And we have a lot of food. I don’t think we can finish it all without you.”

He finished with a welcoming smile and Rey could see that, for the time being, he was sincere. If he would seriously flip himself, which could happen any moment, she could always follow her trail back and quickly close the bond now that she was fluent with it. Besides, the thought of letting food go to waste made the hairs in her neck stand up and her pulse quicken with agitation.

Rey took Kylo’s hand and let the sweetly heated sensation of the touch take her to where he was. A table with steaming pots on it and people around it materialized in front of her. Everyone’s eyes turned on her and she wondered how they would take her way of crashing the party from thin air. But Kylo seemed to relate to the situation as something completely normal.

“Hey everyone, this is Rey. She’s… Well… You know our situation. She can only be here as long as we hold hands.”

A wave of approving, friendly laughter passed through the room. Rey was so shocked that she barely managed a brief ‘hello’. All this time, when she had been doing everything she could to keep their connection secret, had Kylo just been speaking about it openly among his officers? She did not have time to wonder about it for long, as Kylo started taking her around the table to introduce her to the others.

“This is General Hux, and this is Norna Hux, and little Hux.”

Kylo gestured first at the General, then at the woman by his side and then at her round belly. Rey shook their hands and mumbled something that sounded like ‘nice to meet you’. She had seen General Hux before on holovids that the First Order broadcasted, like the one where he announced the completion of the Starkiller project and the Hosnian Cataclysm. Even though his features were familiar, she had a hard time believing that this was the same person. She would not have thought that his hand was capable of the movement that he so frequently made to stroke his wife’s belly with an empty, tender expression on his face.

“This is Admiral Griss.” Kylo continued the round.

“Nice to meet you, Rey.” He shook her hand. “This is my wife Janilii.”

Janilii shook her hand, too, and gestured towards the corner of the room.

“And there are our Ollie and Teg-Min. Boys, come to say hi to Auntie Rey!”

Both Ollie and Teg-Min had the dark skin of their father and the blue curly hair of their mother. They ran up to them, said a quick ‘Hello, Auntie Rey!’ and ran back to the corner to continue their game. Rey could not stop smiling anymore.

Next, Kylo took her to a young couple who had slid their chairs right next to each other and were sitting with entangled arms, heads tilted towards each other. They stirred in Rey a similar emotion as she sometimes had when looking at cute Resistance couples in love – the sadness that the only person she had something like a crush on could never be hers in this way.

“This is Lieutenant Mitaka and his girlfriend Alsi.”

“You can call me Dopheld”, the Lieutenant said in a low voice, with a side-eyed look at Kylo.

When he saw that no punishment was on its way, he gave Rey a more liberated smile. Alsi shook her hand with both of her own and said several times how happy she was to meet her.

Kylo continued to introduce her to more people. She met Commander Trach and his boyfriend who both told her that they were her fans after what she had done to Snoke, which made her confused. She met Lieutenant Garan whose toddler kept chaotically turning in her lap but refusing to stay anywhere else. And she met several whose names did not stick to her mind.

Finally, they could sit down to eat. A droid brought Rey a chair next to Kylo’s, at about the same distance as Dopheld and Alsi’s chairs. Trying to not care about the questionable message it might send out, Rey focused on helping herself to the various fragrant dishes and sampling them with her one free hand.

“So where did you two meet?” Janilii asked innocently.

“In Takodana”, Kylo answered.

Rey wanted to continue that she had actually been trying to shoot him and that they still were enemies and definitely not together, even though forced to constantly hold hands in this occasion. But when she had swallowed what was in her mouth, Admiral Griss had already picked up on Kylo’s short version of the story and started to tell about a family trip they once took to Takodana. Both him and Janilii went on and on about its beauty and Rey was forgotten for a while and settled on focusing on eating again.

The story of the Griss family trip had almost finished when somebody tugged Kylo’s shirt. Ollie had left the corner when their game finished.

“Uncle Kylo, we want to play First Order and Resistance. Can I borrow your cowl?”

With his free hand, Kylo unclasped his cowl and let it fall from his shoulders. Then he shuffled Ollie’s blue curls and grinned at him. The little boy dragged the waterfall of black fabric down from Kylo’s chair and shortened its strap with a movement that looked like he had done it before. When he clasped the cowl on his own shoulders, half of its length pooled on the floor behind him. Rey could not help chuckling.

“And your lightsaber?” Ollie held out his expectant hand.

“No, lightsabers are not for kids.” Kylo shook his head. “When you're older.”

“Next month I’ll be eight!”

“I mean like eigh _teen_.”

Ollie looked down in disappointment but swallowed it quickly and went to chase Teg-Min. He screamed and fled. When he hit the wall and could not run further, he turned with his hands pointing forward, elbows close to his waist, holding an imaginary blaster and making shooting sounds. But Ollie blocked the shots, held out his hand and pinched his fingers. Teg-Min’s blaster disappeared in the air, his hands rose to his throat and he started to imitate choking.

When Ollie opened his hand, both the boys jumped at each other, forgetting imaginary weapons and the Force and fighting with their bare hands. Since Ollie was older and bigger and wore Kylo Ren’s cowl which made him feel invincible, he managed to push Teg-Min to the ground and went on fighting to get his legs around him to sit on his chest as a seal of victory.

Rey could not just watch and let the First Order win this battle, no matter how innocent it looked. She lifted her free hand and let her fingers extend through the Force. She reached all the way to Ollie’s armpits and sent there a fierce tickle. Ollie was thrown back from his little brother and could only roll on the floor in laughter.

Teg-Min sat up, confused about what had happened. When his gaze met Rey’s, she winked an eye at him. Right at the moment when Rey let go, Teg-Min leaped on Ollie, sat on his chest, shoot his arms in the air and let out a victorious scream.

Rey felt pleased with herself, especially seeing that Kylo had noticed and gave her a disapproving look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This party is not going to be over before she has made another new friend.


	3. How she made a friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let’s say you put all the Supreme Leader issues aside just for a while, how much do you like him?”

Kylo went on to demonstrate his resentment by turning away from Rey and immersing into a conversation with Hux about the specifications of a new star destroyer they were about to purchase. Following his example, she turned away from him, too. That was when she found out that Alsi had left Dopheld’s side and circled the table to sit next to her.

“Takodana, huh? Didn’t sound like that was the full story.” She leaned forward, eager to listen, so that her wavy blond hair fell off her shoulders.

“Eh, no. Actually, there is no _that_ kind of story anyways. We’re not together.”

“No?” Alsi leaned even closer, nodded her head towards Kylo and half-whispered: “Commitment issues?”

Rey chuckled. She stood up and moved with Alsi as far as she could from him without letting go of his hand. Kylo glanced at her when he felt how she pulled his hand straight. But seeing what she was up to, he let her stand with his arm outstretched and turned his head back to the conversation with Hux. Rey estimated that the combined length of their arms was long enough that she could respond to Alsi in a low voice without being overheard:

“I guess that would be one way to put it. But in his case, it’s more like over-commitment to the First Order.”

“And does that matter?”

“Well yeah, obviously it does. I mean, I’m not with the First Order. I’m actually training to be a Jedi with the Resistance.”

Rey’s eyes drifted to Dopheld on the other side of the table.

“What do _you_ do?” she asked Alsi.

“I’m an editor. I work in a publishing house, editing literature, you know.”

Rey did not know, but she could imagine the concept of editing literature, so she nodded. Alsi’s answer brought her closer to asking what she was dying to know, though still shy to put it in words. The friendly smile she was facing gave her courage.

“Then how do you make it work? Having a relationship while he’s here?”

“Well, it’s not always easy, of course. Dopheld is most of the time away. We don't get to see each other whenever we want, but every time we get a chance to be together, we make it count.”

She glanced briefly over the table and exchanged an air-kiss with her boyfriend.

“But Alsi, do you actually... support this stuff?”

Rey made a rolling gesture with her head, referring not exactly to this room, where the atmosphere happened to be surreally normal, but to how these same people used to behave outside these walls.

“You mean the First Order politics? No, not at all. So of course I’m not exactly happy that he’s here. But I’ve figured that everyone needs a job, and we love each other. Too bad if it hasn’t worked out for you two yet. From what I’ve heard from Dopheld about how Ren talks about you, he seems to be pretty into you, pretty crazy about you actually.”

Rey blushed and looked back at Kylo, wondering if he had heard that, but he did not show any sign of it. She turned back to Alsi.

“Well, let’s say, just hypothetically, that we’d both be into each other, he’s still the Supreme Leader of this whole thing. I can’t just put that aside.”

Alsi’s gaze followed Rey’s arm all the way up to Kylo. She took a deep breath, looked at Rey with understanding eyes and placed a hand on her shoulder. Rey felt like collapsing against her and wetting the shoulder of her pastel yellow blouse with her tears. She had not dared to talk about the complexities of her relationship with Kylo to anybody in the Resistance. And she had longed for this kind of understanding that she read in these bright blue eyes.

“My cousin is actually with the Resistance”, Alsi said. “Wrobie Tyce, maybe you know her.”

Rey nodded. She remembered the name and the face though would not say that she knew her personally.

“And then I have another cousin who’s with the First Order. You see, that’s what wars tend to do: they divide families. But they don’t have to stop the love. Whenever we gather with my relatives, we don’t talk about work or politics or battles... So, just hypothetically, you say? Let’s say you put all the Supreme Leader issues aside just for a while, how much do you like him?”

Rey leaned towards Alsi’s ear and lowered her voice down towards a whisper. This she really did not want Kylo to hear.

“I guess, a lot… I mean, sometimes it’s difficult to sleep when I can’t stop thinking about him. Once I was training and I suddenly thought about how he would look naked, and I got so distracted that a practice droid hit me in the middle of my face. My nose was red for days and everybody was asking about it.”

They both giggled.

“I don’t blame you”, Alsi said, glancing at Kylo. “Seems like a pretty hot image to pop up. Just think about those arms around you and those lips…”

“Stop!”

Rey covered Alsi’s mouth with her hand. She was still trying to move it in a mixture of laughter and words. Rey was saved by Dopheld who appeared behind Alsi and enclosed her in a loose hug.

“Has she been too chatty again?” he asked and Rey released her mouth.

“We actually talked about you”, Alsi seamlessly changed the topic. “I told her how we manage our relationship while you’re here. Oh, but I didn’t mention all the plans we have for when the war is over. Listen, Rey, we have almost finished drawings for a house we want to build somewhere green. Big enough that we can fit in a couple of kids if we’re lucky. And Dopheld writes excellent poetry. I’m going to help him publish his first anthology.”

“You don’t have to go around telling that to everyone”, Dopheld criticized.

“Yes, I have to. I have to help you stay committed to your dream. Actually, Rey, next time you meet him, you should ask him how his writing is going. He has committed to writing one line per day while he works here. He already finished many wonderful poems with that strategy.”

“I’d love to hear one some time”, Rey said.

“Maybe…” Dopheld’s voice was shy and he avoided Rey’s eyes. “But now, sweetheart, we should go. It’s pretty late. The lights will dim soon.”

Alsi hugged Rey and left with Dopheld. Rey wondered how they were able to walk so entangled with each other. As also others started to take their leave, Rey turned back to Kylo, who had stood up and taken a step towards her to relax their arms. He seemed to have more or less forgotten his grudge.

And there it was again. Now that the conversation with Alsi had just reminded her about it and she was closer to him again, still holding his hand, she could not stop her mind from picturing all his clothes off. She fought the image away and said:

“Thanks for the dinner, it was nice of you to bring me.”

“Nice if you liked it. Next time I could actually invite you beforehand.”

“Good night, Kylo.”

She squeezed his hand a little tighter before drifting back to her own room and letting go of him. She heard a distant ‘Good night, Rey’, as she tugged out the cord that had held them together for the whole evening - the evening that she had enjoyed more than most of those that she had spent in this base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey would obviously love to meet Alsi again. In the next chapter, it might happen.


	4. How they almost went for it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We’re going to Warlentta. Alsi lives there, so I gave Mitaka tomorrow night off. He asked if we’d go out for dinner with them. Would you like to come?”

They talked almost every day from then onwards. Sometimes briefly, just to wish each other good night, sometimes longer to comfort each other against attacks of loneliness by chattering and laughing. When Kylo was visiting an interesting planet and had some time off there, he would sometimes show Rey around. The new worlds she saw like this blew her mind.

Now they were somewhere in the Outer Rim, strolling hand in hand along an endless-looking beach, waves occasionally kissing their bare feet.

“Thanks for bringing me here. It’s beautiful. But I really should go back to get some sleep now.”

She closed her eyes to savor the final bits of ocean breeze.

“Are you busy tomorrow night?”

“Nope. Are you still going to be on this planet?”

“Actually no, we’re going to Warlentta. Alsi lives there, so I gave Mitaka tomorrow night off. He asked if we’d go out for dinner with them. Would you like to come?”

“Yes, sure!” Rey did not hesitate. She had been missing Alsi.

The following evening, Kylo picked her up with a pull on her left hip. When she took his hand and followed him, she appeared in a city, on a quiet alleyway which led to a lively street. He took her to a restaurant behind the corner, where Dopheld and Alsi were already waiting, immersed in a kiss, which they broke when they noticed them arriving. Alsi leaped from Dopheld’s arms to hug Rey and kiss her cheek.

“I’ve missed you so much”, she sighed.

Rey told her she had missed her, too. Dopheld also hugged her but a lot more loosely and quickly, with the normal reserve that he could never quite let go in Kylo’s presence.

They sat down to examine the menu but Rey had no idea about the names of the local dishes. In the end, she ordered what Alsi was having, hoping it would be something she could easily eat with one hand. That might very well be the case, since Alsi seemed so committed to keeping at least one arm entangled with Dopheld’s - not out of necessity as in Rey and Kylo’s case but out of an affection that Rey refused to think about more closely, since she wanted to avoid envying this person whom she liked so much.

When the food arrived, Rey noticed that her guess had been wrong. Half of the portion was a salad with fried cubes and chunky sauce on it, but half was some kind of a huge sandwich. She decided to start with the salad and worry about how to hold the sandwich in one hand later.

Alsi was excitedly chattering and asking everyone questions, but Rey noticed how she did not touch at all the subject of what Dopheld and Kylo had been doing in her homeworld the whole day and what they would probably continue tomorrow. The conversation stayed lively in casual topics. Rey even remembered to ask how Dopheld’s writing was going, which made him blush and Alsi radiate with delight.

When Rey was done with her salad and could not avoid the sandwich anymore, she tried to slide her fingers under it and pick it up with one hand. She could only tilt it a little, which caused a delicious-looking sauce to start leaking out on the plate.

Kylo noticed what she was trying to do. Without breaking contact, he moved his chair towards hers and took a hold of her closer arm with his free hand above her elbow. Then he let go of holding that hand and snaked his arm around her waist instead. When he released her arm, her both hands were free but she was still in his space, just now with her whole body shuddering with heat that was rippling from his arm around her waist.

She had got used to holding his hand now that they had been using it so often as a method for her to travel with him. It still gave her some tingles of electricity but no longer immersed her whole being into a vortex of warmth and intensity like during the first times. But this was something else. She had never been in this much contact with Kylo and it was making her head spin and stomach flip.

With shaky hands, she lifted her sandwich with both hands and started eating. The delicious mixture of sauce, fillings and crusty bread in her mouth mixed sweetly with the thrill radiating throughout her body from the touch of his arm.

Alsi was already done with her sandwich and Dopheld was cleaning away the traces of sauce from her face, partly with a napkin, partly with soft kisses. Guessing that her face looked the same after finishing, Rey quickly drowned her whole mouth and chin in her napkin to make sure she got everything out by herself.

She was finished now, so technically she could again take Kylo’s hand and switch their chairs further apart. But that would mean taking his arm away from around her, and she did not feel like doing that anymore. Instead, she let her head fall to the side on his shoulder and rested her hand on his thigh. His arm tightened around her waist, and she felt like she could faint or explode or both.

Only when they eventually were ready to go, did Rey and Kylo shift back to holding hands. Before parting by the door, Rey pulled Alsi into a hug with her free arm and said:

“I don’t want to miss you this much anymore. Can I comm you?”

“Sure, any time!”

Alsi punched her contacts into Rey’s commlink. Then she headed towards her home with Dopheld in their normal entangled walking style. Kylo took Rey back to the alley where they were out of sight so that Rey could disappear without attracting attention. He did not let go of her hand, though.

Instead, he took her other wrist and traced his free hand up her arm. He was so close now that Rey could feel an electric flutter pulsating not only from his hands but from his whole body into the little bit of space between them. When he reached the top of her shoulder, he brushed his thumb over her collarbone and neck in a way that flipped her stomach again.

He brought his face down to hers and let his nose stroke the skin of her own, as his lips came so close to her mouth that she could feel their subtle trembling through the air. The next thing she felt was the soft touch of his lips on hers, making a small movement to nudge her mouth more open.

Before he could get any closer, she turned her head away. She made herself bypass the consuming desire that was now wrenching her whole being and asked:

“What are you doing? Do you think we’re just like them? That we can just ignore what you’re doing to the galaxy and take time off to be in love?”

“What’s so different between us and them?”

“For him, it’s just a job. You’re the force behind it all.”

Rey let her own surroundings manifest back, shook herself loose from Kylo’s hands and closed the bond. As her figure was fading, Kylo could make out the first tears falling down her cheeks. What he did not see anymore was how Rey threw herself on her bed and sobbed herself to sleep, skin aching at the loss of his touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Rey ever going to change her mind? Or somebody else?  
> Next chapter...


	5. How the strike started

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, you said, no sex until the First Order is disarmed, stormtroopers set free, sovereignty of the worlds restored and the New Republic re-established with an elected Senate?”

From then on, Rey systematically rejected Kylo’s calls with three pulls on the cords between them. For some time, he kept persistently trying, but over time his efforts tired off. The absence of the connection left a painful Kylo-sized hole in Rey’s life, but she could bear it and partly fill it by comming Alsi when feeling lonely.

With her, she could talk about almost everything. She still kept her guards on regarding anything to do with the Resistance, in case Alsi would accidentally slip something to Dopheld. But about her own feelings, she could be a lot more open than with Kylo or even her friends in the Resistance. There was something about Alsi’s open-hearted presence that invited Rey to unlock her own heart.

Sometimes Alsi would read aloud her favorite sections from the books she was editing. Then Rey would close her eyes and cherish the experience of being carried away into stories or poems, which her life had been more or less void of so far.

And sometimes Rey would sing to her something from Jakku, first in a cautious voice, insecure about how she sounded as she had always only sung to herself. But Alsi was an encouraging listener who could lure out a more confident voice from Rey over time.

Rey felt like she could ask Alsi anything she wanted, too. She had tons of things she was curious about regarding the lives of people who did not have to deal with living as an orphan, scavenging for food, awakenings in the Force, being pulled into a messy Jedi family drama and devoting to the Resistance.

Alsi told her everything she wanted to know. And over time, she worked herself up to asking what she had recently been growing increasingly curious about:

“How is it… to be with a man… like _that_?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful…” Alsi’s eyes twinkled even more than normal, almost looking like they were about to abandon their deep blue color and just gleam a bright white light. “The sensation of being filled and ravished and loved, and the touch everywhere…"

"But how..." Rey's thumb and index finger instinctively formed a gap of a few centimetres, which, according to what she had gathered from HoloNet, was a typical thickness for a human penis. She had spent a possibly embarrassing amount of time with her fingers in this position (or a little wider, just in case _his_ was bigger) between her legs, trying to use her other hand to stretch her flesh to fit around the gap with alarmingly little success.

"How will it ever fit in you?" Alsi completed. "I used to wonder the same. But you do stretch surprisingly much."

"Really, this much!? But what if his is bigger?" Rey looked through the gap between her fingers and let them hover wider until her eyes narrowed at the drastic impossibility.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out. Even if not the first time, at least over time it will be awesome."

"In what way?"

"Oh, in so many ways. Maybe what I love the most is the feeling of being wanted. The way Dopheld sometimes looks at me and touches like he can’t get enough of me. I could just drown in that.”

“Yeah, he certainly looks like he really wants you a lot. How much, do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if your body was out of his reach for some time, what would he be ready to do to have you again?”

For a moment, Alsi just stared at Rey's holoprojection with her mouth open. Then the thought behind her question started to dawn to her.

“I think I see where you’re arriving at. But I don’t know… How would it make any difference? He’s just one person.”

“Are you in touch with any of the other people from that dinner party?”

“Well, with Janilii we comm sometimes.”

“Can you get her in now?”

Alsi dialed Janilii Griss and quickly her projection appeared, greeting them both with enthusiasm.

“Who is it?” a bright voice shouted from somewhere further in her space.

“It’s Auntie Alsi and Auntie Rey”, Janilii shouted back and soon Teg-Min’s blue cloud of curls popped under his mother’s chin.

He waved and blew kisses at them and told Rey how he had beaten Ollie in the First Order and Resistance game without her help.

“That’s great, Teg-Min”, Rey encouraged him. “And you’ll still beat him many more times. It doesn’t matter if he’s older or bigger or stronger, when the Force is with you. You know what? Once I beat Uncle Kylo in a lightsaber battle. He still has the scar, you remember?”

Rey passed a finger diagonally over the right side of her face and Teg-Min remembered. His eyes lit up in awe.

“Really!? You have to tell me all about how you did that!”

“Later, later”, Janilii laughed and kissed Teg-Min’s brow. “Now, go play with Ollie and let me talk with them.”

Teg-Min’s head disappeared from the projection and Janilii listened when Alsi and Rey asked if she was in touch with any other First Order officers’ partners. She brought in a few, who again had more contacts. Soon, Rey’s commlink filled her room with holoprojections of wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends. After some friendly exchange of hellos, Alsi started to explain why they had commed everybody:

“In the past months, Rey has become one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and she has helped me see something very important. We’re all looking the other way, as our partners are engaging in genocide. I’m sure that you agree with me that this is not the life you wanted: staying at home by yourself, wondering what he or she is doing and if they are ever coming back. This is not the kind of family where you wanted to raise your children.”

“Sure it’s not”, Norna Hux said with a worried look, thumb softly stroking the head of the infant who was sucking her breast. “But what can we do? Any time I try to ask if they could at least stop blowing up whole planets, he just says that it’s not that simple and changes the subject.”

“We have one idea with Rey. Will you tell them what it is?”

Rey explained everything in an occasionally shaking voice. When she was done, everyone fell silent. The first one to speak was a man whom Rey remembered as Commander Trach’s boyfriend, though she had forgotten his name.

“So, you said, no sex until the First Order is disarmed, stormtroopers set free, sovereignty of the worlds restored and the New Republic re-established with an elected Senate?”

“Exactly”, Rey confirmed.

“How about comm sex?” a middle-aged woman asked. If Rey remembered correct, she was Captain Peavey’s wife.

“No”, Alsi clarified. “You can flirt your heart out but not go any further than that, not physically and not over comm.”

Everyone looked discouraged and Alsi understood them. The chances for connection were already rationed for these couples. It would not be easy to reject those scarce opportunities, not even for herself. She tried to choose her words carefully:

“Look, if it’s difficult for you, think about it that once we get our will through, he or she will come back home and be by your side for good. Isn’t that worth the waiting? And besides…”

She looked at Rey who met her smirk, mirrored it on her own face and finished her sentence for the others:

“…I don’t think they’ll last long.”

People started to nod but some were still hesitant, Janilii among them.

“Ok, I’m ready to give this strike a try”, she said. “But are you with us, Rey? Sure it would be most important to put pressure on the Supreme Leader.”

Rey looked down at her hands.

“Eh… I would, for sure… But actually, nothing’s happening between us. There’s nothing I could go on strike from.”

Janilii looked surprised but composed herself quickly.

“Oh, I see. But I guess you could at least give a hint that the situation might change once our terms get through, right?”

“Don’t pressure her.” Alsi’s projection looked at Rey protectively. “Rey, don’t do anything that would make you feel that you owe him something after this. Only if you really want it yourself, it wouldn’t hurt to put some steam on him.”

Rey took a deep breath and scanned the translucent faces around her. She had no idea how exactly to ‘give a hint that the situation might change’. But this would be her chance to figure it out. If their terms went through, she would want nothing more than a change in the situation. She was wanting it way too much already now.

“Yes, I’ll take care of the Supreme Leader. Let’s do this together, for the galaxy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How will the First Order react?  
> Next chapter...


	6. How it all ended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Rey, do you have something to do with this? My crew is going crazy. None of them has got laid in a month. I… I had no idea that was what kept them going.”

“General Hux, where is your report on the blaster design review?”

“It’s a bit delayed. But you’ll get it by tonight, Supreme Leader.”

“We agreed by mid-day.”

“Yes, but…”

He could not finish. There was no way he would tell Ren how distracted he had been the whole morning and why. He had commed Norna the previous night. She had chatted lively about everything that had happened at home and imitated a new sound the baby had learned. Then she had changed to her nightshirt, stretching her back in the process in a way that lifted up her milk-swollen breasts – the way that always got him hard. But then she had yawned, said with a smirk that she was off to sleep, waved her hand and hung up.

He had already got used to the way how the pregnancy and breastfeeding had been throwing her desires wildly up and down. But on the days of low drive, she was usually frank about it and did not bother teasing, as she knew that he definitely did not like it. Now the last thing on his mind was the design review report. But he would have to somehow pull it together.

“…you’ll get it by tonight”, he repeated, went back to his desk and grabbed his head with both hands, trying to force his brain to focus.

Hux did not yet know that it would not be the last time and that he was not the only one. Night after night, when the comm towers of the star destroyers were busy transmitting connections between the officers’ quarters and their homes, everyone got their own version of a similar rejection. The most optimistic of them interpreted it as a tease, meant to increase anticipation for the next day off. But when they had a chance to visit home or have their spouse visit the star destroyer, they noticed that they had assumed wrongly.

In just a few weeks, the command decks of all the First Order’s star destroyers were ripe with sexual frustration. Officers kept snapping at each other and failing simple tasks. Kylo tried to keep order by choking whoever failed to follow orders, but his subordinates seemed to embrace it as a distraction from the even more painful reality.

When somebody gave the wrong coordinates to a weapon shipment and caused it to get lost in an asteroid belt where the Resistance ambushed it, Kylo’s patience, which had already been running on fumes, was completely exhausted. He called up all his officers into an emergency meeting.

“This has to end. Now! We are the First Order. I will have _order_! Not this kind of pandemonium where all of you buzz aimlessly around like you were in the Resistance. Who was it this time? Who gave our shipment to the rebel scum?”

When nobody answered, he brought his face right in front of Admiral Griss, whose unit had been in charge of the shipment, and stared at him from minimal distance until he had to answer:

“Su-Supreme Leader, Kandia punched one number wrong in the coordinates. We were unlucky that the Resistance happened to be patrolling in just that region. She’ll have to learn to be more careful.”

All eyes turned to Kandia who lost it.

“Huh, now it’s all _my_ fault!!! So easy for you to say, Griss! How would I have time to check any numbers when you keep shouting order after order at me? There’s no way to focus on anything when you all keep arguing around me. Everything about this fleet is kriffed up and I haven’t got laid in a month!”

She shut her mouth quickly. Clearly, she had said more than she intended. But Griss’s eyes widened in curiosity.

“What? You neither?”

“Did they tell you any reason at home?” Captain Peavey asked them.

“Yes”, Griss and Kandia answered at the same time.

“No sex until the First Order is disarmed, stormtroopers set free, sovereignty of the worlds restored and the New Republic re-established with an elected Senate?” Commander Trach asked and almost everyone around the table nodded.  
  


* * *

  
Rey was expecting Kylo to call soon and knew that this time she would have to pick up, even though she was not yet sure about what she would say or do. But she had not expected him to react this fast and in this way. She was training with Leia, in the middle of one more lesson about how to resist the dark side, when she felt five pulls in her right little finger – Kylo requesting her immediate response.

“Please excuse me, Master”, Rey mumbled and ran to her own room.

Out of a sudden instinct, before reaching for the cord attached to her finger, she adjusted the white drapes crossing her chest. She tugged them under her belt closer to the middle, thus moving their intersection lower, baring the space between her breasts. As soon as Kylo materialized, his gaze dropped to the newly exposed skin. Just like Rey had wished, it took a moment for him to pull his eyes up to her face and start speaking:

“R-Rey, do you have something to do with this?”

Rey did not really know how to go about this, but she tuned into the Force and It suggested her a few moves and words. She shifted her weight to one leg, let that hip curve outward and took a loose strand of hair between her fingers to roll it.

“What?” she asked with an innocent smile.

“My crew is going crazy. None of them has got laid in a month. I… I had no idea that was what kept them going.”

“Oh, you had no idea? Who knows, maybe that would get you going as well… But ouch, too bad we can’t find that out now that the galaxy is on sex strike against the First Order. Did they tell you our terms?”

She bit her lip, stroke her shoulder in an idle way that stirred the fabric covering it, baring more skin, and looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.

“You must understand, Rey, it’s not that simple.” His breathing was heavy around his words.

“Not that simple? Sounds familiar… I’m afraid you’ve used that excuse before. Mmm, now, why do I get so wet when thinking about all those stormtroopers stripping off their armor, and all those Senators caressing the voting buttons with their fingers. Just like your fingers were already on my…”

“Stop it! We’ll do anything you ask, ok? We can retreat from the worlds, set the stormtroopers free and disarm in a matter of weeks. I’ll just give the order and it will be done. But… Just...”

“…you don’t know how to restore the New Republic and organize a Senate election?”

He looked down in silent agreement, which made her grin.

“I just happened to be talking with somebody who would know all about that.”

She held out her hand in invitation.

“I don’t think this is a good idea”, he resisted. “Couldn’t you ask her?”

Rey just shook her head and extended her hand further until Kylo lifted his own shaky hand and took it. He had never intentionally tuned into Rey’s surroundings before, but it was not difficult to follow her invitation.

He saw a small and messy room manifest around him. Rey dragged him around the heaps of clothing, tools and unrecognizable items and into the corridor outside. On the way to the General’s office, they passed a few people who immediately raised their blasters. Rey used the Force to cast those out of their hands.

She remembered how this had been exactly what she had been afraid of when following Kylo to his dinner party. But there, nobody had raised their hand against her. Instead, she had been greeted with friendship and one of the best dinners she had ever had. She felt a pinch of shame when thinking about the drastic difference in hospitality between the First Order and the Resistance. The sooner they would make it to the person who had the power to change things, the better.

Leia switched off a holoprojection of a bundle of ships when she heard a knock and saw them at the door. Rey remembered too late to adjust her drapes back to a position that covered her chest more appropriately. Her efforts to do that quickly with one hand made Leia look back and forth between them with a grin that showed how much she guessed about the reason why her son had suddenly showed up after years of avoiding her.

She stood up from her desk, took a couple of steps towards them and opened her arms.

Kylo walked into the room and hugged her, first clumsily folding his free hand around her shoulders, eventually relaxing into it, letting his chin rest on her head and tears fall.

“I’ve missed you, Ben”, Leia almost whispered, years of hidden exhaustion and despair released with her words.

“Mom…” His voice died into sobs.

“I know.”

She held him as long as it took for him to finish crying. Then she let go, looked at his face again and swept the remaining tears from his cheeks.

“But I do want to hear you say it. Say it.”

He took a deep breath before he spoke:

“Can you help me restore the New Republic and organize a Senate election?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's quite inspiring how many times [sex strikes have worked in our universe](https://theweek.com/articles/457903/5-sex-strikes-21st-century).  
> That made me to think that it might work on the First Order, too.
> 
> Now, get ready for a fluffy epilogue!


	7. Epilogue

“Three steps, good, that’s my girl!”

Hux wrapped his daughter into a hug as she collapsed into his arms. He kissed her cheek, tickled softly her side and made her laugh.

“Now, let’s see, can you make it all the way to Uncle Ben? It will be five steps, I think.”

He measured the distance with his eyes and Ben already started to lean forward to make it shorter. The tiny girl took one careful step, then another. Then she got excited of being so close that she tried to be faster and fell towards the floor right in front of Ben.

But he was faster than her fall. He caught her shoulders before she hit the floor, lifted her up on his knee and pointed to the corner of the room.

“See, one day very soon, you’ll walk all the way there and not even notice it. And you’ll walk out of the door, anywhere you want to go. And then you’ll run faster than your dad and fly and read and write better than him and oh, speak much better…”

“Ok, that’s enough!” Hux cut him.

“I’m just telling her the inevitable truth. Remember when you had to announce the Hosnian Cataclysm and you were so nervous? And in the speech there was that one part, ‘regime that acquiesces to disorder’, that you could never get right. And every time you practiced reading it aloud everyone laughed. I think she’ll never have that problem.”

“Well, I did get it right in the end. You can't deny that it turned out a pretty good speech.”

"I think you gave a much better one when you announced the dismantling of the First Order. You were my hero that day." Norna wrapped her arms around his waist and dropped her chin on his shoulder so that his ear was at a suitable distance to whisper: "And still are."

“Yeah, that one was ok”, Ben agreed but continued softly to the toddler's ear: "I still think you'll do better."

“Sure she will.” Hux took his daughter back to his own arms and sat down on the furry carpet again.

Ben leaned back on the sofa and Rey snuggled under his arm, resting her head against his shoulder.

“Do you want some sparkling?” Alsi asked them, holding a tray of full glasses.

Ben took a glass but Rey shook her head. Alsi looked at her first with surprise, then with deepening curiosity.

“Why not? You usually…”

“I’m not telling you yet.”

But Rey’s smile made her friend bubble from the inside with an excited guess, as she poured her a glass of jidda instead. Barely containing herself, she continued her tour around the room to empty her tray.

“Boys! Do you want jidda?” she shouted out to the garden.

Ollie and Teg-Min ran inside, dirty hands eagerly reaching for their glasses. A critical look from their father reminded them to add:

“Thank you, Auntie Alsi!”

Finally, Alsi sat down next to Dopheld, took one glass for herself and raised it.

“Welcome, everyone. So nice to have you here again. Just remember that upstairs we’re still painting, so be careful with the walls. Oh, and actually, we have some news.”

She looked at Dopheld who looked bashfully down but smiled. Alsi placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Dopheld’s anthology is out!”

Everyone broke out in congratulations and raised their glasses. Rey took a sweet and refreshing gulp of jidda before she asked:

“Would you read something from it?”

Dopheld took out a data cube and browsed until he found a suitable spot. All his shyness was gone and he seemed lost in the words and the spaces between them as he read aloud:

_If you want the moon, do not hide at night._

_If you want a rose, do not run from the thorns._

_If you want love, do not hide from yourself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dopheld's poem is by Rumi.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this far!  
> Would be nice to hear a comment if you've enjoyed :)


End file.
